Customers in retail stores often desire to inspect the contents of a package prior to making a purchase. This is particularly true for articles of clothing such as intimate apparel. As a result of this desire, customers may attempt to open packages to view and touch garments contained therein. Examples of such display packages that are commonly used for intimate apparel include polymer bags and cardboard boxes. Such traditional means for packaging underwear often do not display garments in an exposed manner so that potential consumers can touch the garments in a store prior to purchase. Additionally, such containers cannot be easily opened, making products in such containers virtually inaccessible to touch by a customer. Consequently, many customers open containers in order to inspect the garments inside without repackaging the contents, or poorly repackage them, resulting in retail merchandise and packaging being left in disarray. Furthermore, while attempting to open packages in order to inspect garments, customers may even damage the package.
To address the customers' desire to both see and touch garments prior to purchase, packages may be designed to at least partially expose garments contained within the packages. Some package designs provide exposed garments that are secured within the package by a band, or narrow strip of material, that is wrapped around the package. In such a design, the packages are frequently susceptible to being torn, and/or the displayed garments are susceptible to being too easily removed by customers. Such disadvantages result in packaging and package contents being left in disarray.
One approach to sufficiently secure garments that are exposed for inspection by a display package is to fold garments about a foldable member of a package. Typically, foldable packages expose only one garment at a time for display. Additionally, foldable packages generally are not constructed to provide sufficient thickness dimensions for aesthetically containing folded garments and for sufficiently securing thick garments or multiple garments, especially when the garments are folded.
Visual and tactile inspection of garments in display packages can be optimized by hanging the packages on a display rack. Many display packages, such as polymer bags and cardboard boxes, use a separate rigid plastic hanger to form a hangable display package. While two-piece packages using separate hanger means provide a hangable display package, such packages are usually more expensive to manufacture than packages having an integral hanging mechanism.
Thus, there is a need to provide a garment display package that is foldable, that is hangable on a display rack, and that permits consumers to both see and touch the displayed garments. It is also desirable to provide some means in such a package to accommodate and securely display multiple garments having some thickness, including folded garments, at the same time. It is to these perceived needs that the present invention is directed.
The present invention relates to foldable garment display packages that allow for visual and tactile inspection of the package contents, a feature that is particularly advantageous for packaging and displaying intimate apparel, such as underwear, in a retail environment.